Dreaded bacterial-related diseases have killed untold numbers of humans over the centuries. Today, two million illnesses and nearly 23,000 deaths can be attributed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria throughout the United States, ...

Cholera is caused when the bacterium Vibrio cholerae infects the small intestine. The disease is characterized by acute watery diarrhea resulting in severe dehydration. EPFL scientists have now demonstrated that V. cholerae ...

(Phys.org) —Cholera against cholera: a novel inhibitor prevents the cholera toxin from binding to carbohydrates found on the surface of intestinal cells. An international team of researchers has described their elegant ...

(Phys.org) —The idea of everyone in a community pitching in is so universal that even bacteria have a system to prevent the layabouts of their kind from enjoying the fruit of others' hard work, Princeton University researchers ...

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have identified an underlying biochemical mechanism that helps make cholera toxin so deadly, often resulting in life-threating diarrhea that causes people to lose as much ...

Cholera remains one of the most prevalent water-related infections in many tropical regions of the world, specifically coastal areas of South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. We now know how to treat cholera patients, and ...

(Phys.org) —Can scientists rid malaria from the Third World by simply feeding algae genetically engineered with a vaccine? That's the question biologists at UC San Diego sought to answer after they demonstrated last May ...

A new study which was performed jointly at Umea University and the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, discovered that bacteria can degrade the cell membrane of bacterial competitors with enzymes that do not harm their ...

A study published today in the journal Nature reports that a viral predator of the cholera bacteria has stolen the functional immune system of bacteria and is using it against its bacterial host. The study provides the first ...

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a menu of 61 new strains of genetically engineered bacteria that may improve the efficacy of vaccines for diseases such as flu, pertussis, cholera and HPV.

Cholera

Cholera, sometimes known as Asiatic or epidemic cholera, is an infectious gastroenteritis caused by enterotoxin-producing strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Transmission to humans occurs through eating food or drinking water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae from other cholera patients. The major reservoir for cholera was long assumed to be humans themselves, but considerable evidence exists that aquatic environments can serve as reservoirs of the bacteria.

Vibrio cholerae is a Gram-negative bacterium that produces cholera toxin, an enterotoxin, whose action on the mucosal epithelium lining of the small intestine is responsible for the disease's most salient characteristic, exhaustive diarrhea. In its most severe forms, cholera is one of the most rapidly fatal illnesses known, and a healthy person's blood pressure may drop to hypotensive levels within an hour of the onset of symptoms; infected patients may die within three hours if medical treatment is not provided. In a common scenario, the disease progresses from the first liquid stool to shock in 4 to 12 hours, with death following in 18 hours to several days, unless oral rehydration therapy is provided.

The majority of reported cholera cases worldwide occur in Africa. It is estimated that most cases of cholera are unreported due to poor surveillance systems, particularly in Africa. Fatality rates are 5% of total cases in Africa, and less than 1% elsewhere. For a map of recent international outbreaks, see:[3]